


running away

by teenunicorn



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Depression, Experimental, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, Oneshot, Spoilers, other characters are mentioned too but not really featured, some homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 14:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11419761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenunicorn/pseuds/teenunicorn
Summary: Ikari Shinji is always trying to escape reality. He rarely succeeds. (edited 22 July 2017)





	running away

**Author's Note:**

> a ~~not-very-rigorously-edited~~ experimental exploration into the psyche of Ikari Shinji.
> 
> (22 July 2017): now coming to you on DVD and VHS, and in a more edited flavor.

Ikari Shinji, age 6, is left on a curb by the side of the road with nothing more than a duffel bag containing all of his clothes, every single item of clothing he owns. He’s not sure what’s happening until his father, Gendo, walks away from him and gets into their car — the family car, the one his mom would let him ride in the front seat in while she was taking him on her errands — and drives away.

Shinji’s crying but he hasn’t realized it yet. He’s wailing loud — embarrassingly so, for his aunt is fretting behind him about the noise — before he knows it his throat is immensely, painfully sore, and somehow, that almost calms him down — that the raspy quality of his child's voice now matches the sorrow he can’t even begin to articulate himself.

~~~

Ikari Shinji, age 9, finds a bike by the side of the road, discarded. So far, every day from the time he was 6, he’s been doing the long walk to school himself, on his own two feet. Maybe, even, he finds some comfort in that both he and the bike were left out like the trash; he and the bike are alike.

When the police pick him up later and accuse Shinji of stealing the bike, and Shinji tries to tell them to call his father, Gendo, but his aunt and uncle arrive, and they make him apologize even though he didn’t steal it, it was thrown away! (Just like him.)

Shinji’s aunt hushes him and hisses in his ear, “Why didn’t you just tell us that you wanted a bike! Your father pays us enough that we can afford it.”

Shinji must have known that these people weren’t caring for him out of the goodness of their hearts. He must’ve known that, somewhere, in the back of his mind, in his subconscious. But now, he is utterly lucid and aware that nothing alive in this world loves him; that anyone who does care for him, is actually after something else. Even his own father is willing to pay someone else just so that he doesn’t even have to think about the fact that he has a son, other than when he writes a check every month.

But now Shinji knows. Perhaps this is the first time in his life that Shinji wanted, in some way, to die.

~~~

Ikari Shinji, age 14, is summoned by his father to come to a place called Tokyo-3 where Shinji’s father works at Nerv, some sort of military organization.

Shinji is a cynical teenager, and he tells himself that he knows better than to get his hopes up as he makes his way to Tokyo-3, that being around his stranger of a father would be weird now, after the past eight years. But he’s still every bit as much a child, an idealistic one at that, and most of his soul dreams, hopes, wishes, fantasizes that Ikari Gendo will tell Shinji that he loves him.

The Child Shinji inside of him is devastated to learn that he was not summoned because his father wants him there by his side, but because his father apparently has something better to do with his money than to keep his trash son under someone else’s roof. Why recruit someone that people love, who people will miss, to pilot a giant robot when Gendo knows perfectly well that no one will miss Shinji?

Shinji tells himself, No, I won’t pilot the giant robot! I won’t do exactly what my father tells me to because I’m just desperate for someone, _anyone_ to give me attention!

If Shinji had done that and gone through with what he told himself he'd do, that would be splendid! Perhaps the kid has some backbone, some self-esteem, some self-worth after all!

Shinji gets into the giant robot anyway.

~~~

Ikari Shinji, still age 14, pilots the giant robot for…what? Shinji doesn’t want to tell himself that he does it so that his dad might notice him, that his dad might give him some words of praise, so that Shinji doesn’t have to keep going on thinking that he’s no better than the trash he has to take out for Misato all the time. Shinji also doesn’t want to think about it like he’s telling himself these things — other people (Rei, Asuka) seem to just _know_ these things, as if they too aren’t just making up the fabric of reality through their minds.

Shinji just wishes he had self-evident truths like the ones Rei and Asuka profess to know. (He just wishes that the truth would change.)

~~~

Ikari Shinji is age 14 when someone else tells him, for the very first time since his mother died when he was a toddler, that he is loved. That he is loved by a person; that he is worthy of love and empathy.

Nagisa Kaworu is this person. Nagisa Kaworu is, also, a boy.

Shinji isn’t sure what to do. Boys aren’t supposed love, or be in love, with boys, he tells himself. I’m straight, aren’t I? If I can be attracted to girls, that means I’m straight, right? Shinji’s frustrated with the fact that he can’t seem to come up with a definite answer for this question. He’s frustrated with the fact that he has to ask the question in the first place. Other people don’t seem to have to question their own sexualities, so why should he have to? There must be something wrong with Ikari Shinji, he concludes.

~~~

Ikari Shinji forgets that Nagisa Kaworu is a boy once when their mouths meet. He’s hard, and he’s not sure if he’d have to forget that Kaworu is a boy in order to be aroused by him. He tries not to think about it too much, which is easy right now, when he can push Kaworu backwards into the sheets of Kaworu’s bed in Kaworu’s apartment, far away from Ikari Gendo, Katsuragi Misato, Ayanami Rei, Soryu Asuka Langley, or anyone else that reminds Shinji of the fact that he is unworthy. That he is disgusting. That he knows many people’s names but not their souls. That even though no one would miss him (and at least a couple of people would be glad) if he died, the entire fate of humanity rests on his shoulders. He tries to forget about this a lot; his hand is useful, in his bedroom (if he can keep quiet enough) or in the shower, for this task.

Shinji finds that right now, it’s a little easier for him to forget when he can hungrily devour Kaworu with his eyes, hands, and mouth, and soak up the delicious moans that Kaworu makes with his ears. (Does this make me more or less gay?) He grinds his own hips down against Kaworu's, and something that _feels_ like happiness rise in his chest when he knows that he’s caused the tenting in the other boy’s pants. (What does it mean? What does it mean that making _him_ aroused makes _me_ happy?)

Shinji is relieved when Kaworu wants him to top. Shinji hates pain, he’s known nothing but it his entire life. As he fucks roughly into boy underneath him, and Kaworu, cheeks flushed, eyes closed, mouth hanging open, cries out every time Shinji's hips meet his backside, some part of Shinji wonders if he gets off on defiling such a pure creature, the one being that loves him, that would love _even_ him, Ikari Shinji. It doesn’t take much for Shinji to forget that thought as Kaworu makes the _prettiest_ sounds whenever he moves his hips to meet Shinji's thrusts.

Shinji finishes inside, and he feels generous enough in the afterglow (and the temporary oblivion and escape it brings) to jerk Kaworu off until he comes too.

~~~

Ikari Shinji is really fucked up. He’s just standing there, seated in the cockpit of the giant robot, with the blood of his — angel? — lover running down his giant robot hand.

He tells Misato, later, that Kaworu had told him that he loved Shinji. Shinji tells himself that he truly wishes he had said those words to Kaworu too.

~~~

Ikari Shinji, age 14, is in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. Nurses and doctors prod and poke at him at all times of day. His hands are cuffed with soft chains so that he can’t hurt himself again. He babbles about a boy named Kaworu, giant robots, and a government conspiracy to anyone who will listen. He talks about them with such a lucid clarity, it’s hard not to believe him. But he also says that Kaworu was an angel, and everyone knows that angels aren’t real.

**Author's Note:**

> My alternative candidate for the summary was, "What do you do when the people who are supposed to love you abuse you? Ikari Shinji certainly doesn't know."
> 
> (22 July 2017): I tried to promise myself that I wouldn't edit it further (I have a tendency to over-edit), but I broke that promise.
> 
> I'm also not entirely happy with this (mostly with the last paragraph), but I've already broken the aforementioned promise once, so oh well.


End file.
